"WORLD CONFLICT IS OVER; GERMANY SIGNS ARMISTICE," The Bethlehem Globe declared on Nov. 7, 1918 -- 100 years ago today. The headline spurred celebrations across the city as residents cheered the end of World War I.

But the conflict was not over. Germany had not signed the armistice. It wouldn't until Nov. 11.

COMING SUNDAY: The story of how the Lehigh Valley celebrated the end of World War I a century ago, as told through archived newspaper reports and headlines.

How did the Globe get it wrong?

The answer appears farther down the Nov. 7 front page. There, another headline brags: "'Globe' through United Press scores beat."

Newspapers then, like today, subscribed to news services like the United Press and Associated Press for news from overseas. The Globe, unlike other local papers, subscribed to both services.

So when the United Press sent a dispatch at 1 p.m. that day declaring the war's end, the Globe believed the report credible. The paper posted flyers outside its office at Fourth Street and Brodhead Avenue, and called industrial plants, churches, schools, the fire department -- any place, it said, "where some sort of heaven-rendering noise could be made."

A patriotic meeting from 1918, around the end of World War I, is seen at the former Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Lehigh Plant.Photo courtesy Lehigh University Digital Scholarship Center

The same day that the Globe's front page declared the war over, the headline atop its crosstown rival The Bethlehem Times described continued fighting in Europe. The Times subscribed to the Associated Press and had not received the erroneous report. Instead, in the center of its front page was an AP bulletin headlined: "Armistice terms not signed as reported."

The AP's announcement had come at 2:15 p.m., a little over an hour after the United Press dispatch. A note from the AP that the armistice had not been signed was included in the Globe's story, but buried far down after the jump to page 11.

"This was the truth, the rock-bottom truth," the Times said in a Nov. 8 editorial lambasting its rival, "but the Globe ... preferred to place it where it would not conflict with the false report so elaborately emphasized on its first page."

The Globe, meanwhile, justified its reliance on the United Press and said (via another United Press report) that the initial dispatch was approved by U.S. Navy Admiral Henry B. Wilson. A follow-up dispatch that day saying that the news was not confirmed was "held up by the censors," the report said.

The Globe on Nov. 9 also fired back at the Times' editorial with front-page commentary. "The Times evidently does not know the difference between a hoax, false news and misinformation," the Globe wrote under the defiant headline "Times writhes and froths at editorial mouth."

(The Globe and Times later merged to form the Bethlehem Globe-Times, which in turn joined the Easton Express to become The Express-Times and, eventually, lehighvalleylive.com.)

Within a few days, the war really did come to an end.

"While Thursday's premature celebration was a memorable one," the Times wrote Nov. 11, 1918, "it was tame compared to this morning's uproarious joy making."